Clean up space junk not by grabbing it, but by nudging it with a laser beam. That's what the Japanese startup Orbital Lasers is building. In March 2026 it raised $20 million in Series A funding to develop compact, high-power space lasers for debris removal and high-precision terrain mapping from orbit, backed by nine investors including Keio Innovation Initiative, the government-linked JIC, and the venture arms of Japan's three biggest banking groups.

A Startup Born from Satellite Operations Experience

Orbital Lasers was established in January 2024 as a "carve-out" from SKY Perfect JSAT, Japan's largest satellite communications company: a large corporation spinning off internal technology into an independent startup, a model gaining traction in Japan's deep-tech ecosystem.

CEO Tadanori Fukushima came out of SKY Perfect JSAT's satellite operations side, handling orbital control and collision avoidance in coordination with the U.S. Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC). He has spent his career on the exact problem his company now aims to solve.

The core technology comes from joint research with RIKEN, Japan's premier natural sciences research institute. What the company claims is a combination it calls high-output, compact, and high-efficiency: substantial peak power within tight limits on mass and electrical budget.

$20 Million Series A: Who's Investing and Why

On March 19, 2026, Orbital Lasers announced the completion of its Series A round, raising approximately $20 million (3.02 billion yen) through a combination of third-party share issuance and J-KISS convertible notes. Combined with its $6 million seed round in December 2024, the company has now raised a cumulative $26 million in equity funding.

The investor lineup reads like a who's who of Japanese institutional capital. SPARX Asset Management led the round, joined by JIC Venture Growth Investments (affiliated with the government-backed Japan Investment Corporation), Keio Innovation Initiative, Angel Bridge, Osaka University Venture Capital, MUFG Capital, Mizuho Capital, SMBC Venture Capital, and parent company SKY Perfect JSAT.

Government-linked funds, university venture arms, megabank VCs, and a strategic corporate investor in one round is a notable spread for a deep-tech space venture at this stage.

Keio Innovation Initiative's Shota Narasaki described the company as possessing "outstanding laser technology and the ability to drive business forward by engaging both public and private sectors." Angel Bridge pointed to a company combining the expertise of RIKEN and SKY Perfect JSAT to develop world-class lasers.

Two Business Pillars: Debris Removal and Satellite LiDAR

Cleaning Up Space with Light

ESA's statistical models put roughly 54,000 objects larger than 10 cm in orbit (about 9,300 of them working satellites), some 1.2 million fragments between 1 and 10 cm, and around 140 million between 1 mm and 1 cm, all moving at speeds exceeding 25,000 km/h. Even a paint fleck at that velocity can damage a satellite, and the International Space Station has had to perform emergency avoidance maneuvers more than once.

Most existing approaches to debris removal involve physical contact: robotic arms, harpoons, nets, or magnetic docking. They work, but they require close approach to potentially tumbling objects, handle one piece at a time, and often need the target to have been designed for capture.

Orbital Lasers takes a fundamentally different approach called laser ablation. Here's how it works: a satellite fires a focused laser beam at a piece of debris. The laser heats the surface so intensely that material vaporizes and turns into plasma, creating a tiny jet of gas. This jet acts like a micro-thruster, gradually nudging the debris onto a new trajectory, typically one that leads it into Earth's atmosphere, where it burns up harmlessly.

The approach is contactless, so there's no collision risk between the cleanup satellite and the debris. It works on spinning objects, which are very hard to grab. And it asks nothing of the target, meaning it can address legacy satellites and rocket bodies never designed for removal.

Mapping Earth in 3D from Space

The second pillar is satellite LiDAR: laser pulses fired at Earth's surface to build precise three-dimensional terrain maps. The company is working with JAXA under a research contract on the concept design and mission-side prototype of a compact altimeter LiDAR satellite.

The applications are vast: global high-resolution 3D mapping, forest carbon absorption estimation through tree height measurement, shallow-water and coastal seafloor mapping, drone navigation support through 3D data, and disaster risk assessment through regular monitoring of rivers, coastlines, and mountainous areas.

In November 2025, the company also signed a contract with Japan's Ministry of Defense for research on "monitoring and defense technology for national satellites in orbit," pointing to national security applications for its laser ranging work.

How Does It Compare to the Competition?

The most obvious comparison is with Astroscale, another Tokyo-headquartered company and the current market leader in satellite servicing and debris removal. Astroscale went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in June 2024 and has already demonstrated close-approach operations with its ADRAS-J mission.

The key difference is approach. Astroscale primarily uses physical docking: magnets, robotic arms, and shepherd vehicles that guide debris into the atmosphere. Its upcoming ELSA-M mission will demonstrate removal of "prepared" satellites equipped with docking interfaces.

Orbital Lasers, by contrast, could potentially handle unprepared debris, objects that were never designed for removal. The two approaches are arguably complementary rather than competitive. Astroscale excels at planned end-of-life servicing; Orbital Lasers targets the messier problem of legacy junk already up there.

SpaceX comes at the issue from prevention: Starlink satellites are designed to autonomously deorbit at end of life. But prevention doesn't clear what's already in orbit, which is where companies like Orbital Lasers come in.

On the LiDAR side, Orbital Lasers faces competition from established Earth observation companies, but its combination of laser technology expertise and compact satellite design could carve out a distinctive niche in high-precision altimetry.

Japan's Space Startup Boom

Orbital Lasers' fundraise reflects the broader growth of Japan's space startup ecosystem. According to SPACETIDE, Japan now has 114 space startups, the most in Asia, with cumulative funding past $1.3 billion. Six have listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Growth market since ispace went first in April 2023, and their combined market cap stood at roughly $2.7 billion as of the end of September 2025.

Public support has followed. JAXA's Space Strategy Fund channels money into cutting-edge space technologies, and in METI's fifth round of J-Startup selections in March 2025, eight of the 31 companies picked were space ventures.

The "carve-out" model that produced Orbital Lasers is worth noting on its own. In Japan, where large corporations have traditionally kept R&D in-house, spinning technology out into an agile startup is a departure. SKY Perfect JSAT let go of its laser team while staying on as a strategic investor, which is the shape a maturing ecosystem takes.

Challenges Ahead

The hurdles are real. Laser ablation for debris removal has been demonstrated in laboratories but never in actual orbit. Building a LiDAR constellation will take substantially more capital. And the regulatory framework for firing lasers in space, even for cleanup, is still forming.

Against that, the combination of JAXA and Ministry of Defense contracts, RIKEN research backing, and a broad investor base gives Orbital Lasers more footing than most early-stage space ventures.

The Series A money goes to three things: laser transmission, high-resolution laser reception, and a mission-optimized satellite bus. Only when the three integrate does the company have a system rather than a component. The stated goal is to be a global leader in space optics by the 2030s, and getting there runs through orbital demonstrations that haven't happened yet.

Space debris is a shared problem for every nation that uses satellites, which is to say every nation. How is your country thinking about space sustainability?

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